Soundproof Your Studio

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Listen to music from my studio - https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/wilsonharwood/gentle-wake

I recently had someone in our community reach out and ask how to soundproof a metal roof. In this article I will dive into the considerations and techniques involved in soundproofing a metal roof. 

This would be my first question if this was my client. The reason is that soundproofing is not an isolated thing where you can just soundproof the ceiling, floor or walls. You have to approach sound isolation as a holistic system with each room or each structure. 

For this reason, I trying to isolate sound from the roof in an entire house would be much more difficult than say isolating sound in a single room in that house. If you are trying to do the latter than your job will be easier. If you want to isolate the entire metal roof from the house than the job will be much more difficult. 

The best system to isolate your ceiling in a specific room from your metal roof would be to remove your existing drywall and attach acoustic clips and hat channels in its place. Then you will add two layers of 5/8" drywall to those hat channels. You would mud and tape your ceiling and leave a 1/4" gap all the way around the ceiling where it meets the wall. Then you fill that 1/4" gap with backer rod and acoustic caulk. 

This would be one step. It may not stop all the noise, but it should be a huge improvement over your original ceiling. To take your isolation to the next level you should use the same system on all of your walls as well. This decouples the drywall from the walls meaning less sound transfer to your room. 

Lastly, you may need to isolate the sound from the roof coming through your window or doors. To do this I would recommend a window insert by a company called Indow. They can make custom plexiglass window inserts that are removable. They do not stop low bass frequencies below 250Hz, but can eliminate the sound of rain on a metal roof. 

For your door you can replace the hollow core door with a heavier solid core door and seal up around the entire perimeter of the door with weather stripping or acoustic seals. 

As you can see, stopping the sound of rain or hail on your metal roof could be a very big ordeal and costly too. 

Picture from a studio build in Nashville. The acoustic clips and hat channel decouple the drywall from the ceiling joists.

Now, if you are in the unfortunate position of wanting to isolate the entire house from the metal roof, things get harder. Option 1 is to isolate each room below the roof in the manner I described above. That would be costly and time consuming. The other option is to build a sound barrier in your attic. Now, this is a thought experiment, but I do have confidence that it could work. 

Sound isolation needs three things. Mass, Decoupling and an airtight system. To fulfill each of those requirements you could build a floating floor in your attic to stop sound. Crazy right? 

Let's assume for this example that your attic is unfinished. First, I would put down two layers of 23/32" OSB over the existing attic floor joists. I would overlap each layer so the seams don't line up. Then I would ensure that the OSB is air tight around the perimeter where the roof meets the walls of the house. This is important since sound can travel through even tiny holes in your system. I would use backer rod and acoustic caulk to seal the perimeter.

After, adding the OSB I would wait and test to see if that was enough to fix the sound issue. If not, I would then add a layer of Rockwool Safe N Sound over the entire OSB attic floor. Then I would add another two layers of 23/32 OSB over the Rockwool Safe N Sound. Again I would make sure this was air tight, but this time I would put a thin layer of backer rod and acoustic caulk between the top layer OSB and the inner roof so that technically they are not touching. This will help decouple sound vibrations from the roof to our top layer of OSB. 

In this system let's say a piece of hail hits the metal roof. It reverberates through the roof and into the attic cavity. The sound hits our first two layers of plywood and is reflected back. Some of that sound continues into our safe n sound where it gets converted into heat from all the miniscule fibers. The sound also gets trapped in that cavity and bounces between the two layers of OSB. Then a small amount of sound will get through our plywood at which point it then must travel through your existing attic insulation and drywall at which point all but the loudest or lowest frequency sound would be heard. 

Metal roofs are not ideal for sound. They create a reverberant surface from which sound travels easily. The methods mentioned above will stop the sound of rain or hail and even other sounds in your neighborhood making life with a metal roof much quieter. 

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

I typically design home recording studios, but a home theater uses the exact same principles for isolation. In this article I will go over my favorite, floor, wall, ceiling and door designs for a home theater. 

Now a home theater is not a recording studio, but room acoustics are still very important. You want to hear the dialogue in your favorite movie and you want the bass to hit crips and hard without a lot of mud. 

The best way to ensure you have a great starting place for room acoustics is to get some favorable room dimensions right off the bat. To do this I recommend starting with the Sepmeyer Ratios, but also using a tool called AMROC that is free to use online. 

I have a great video that goes in depth on room ratios and how to use the tools here: https://youtu.be/mpZsn9FcZnQ

The main thing is to not get overwhelmed by room ratios, but see if you can use them to your advantage when designing the floor plan and ceiling height of your proposed theater. 

When you build in a basement or garage or new addition with a concrete slab you don't have to do anything to soundproof the floor. This is a huge cost saver. Concrete is super heavy and concrete in the earth gives you plenty of isolation for a home theater. For this reason I would never build a home theater on a wood deck on the first or second floor of a house. It just isn't the right place for a soundproof home theater. 

Next your walls should be two 2x4 walls with a 1" air gap between them. The walls should each have some owens corning pink insulation in them and should have 2-4 layers of 5/8" type X drywall on them. If the outside wall is your concrete basement wall then simply build a new wall at least 1" from the existing concrete wall. Below is a diagram of a typical double wall system. 

The best option for your ceiling is to decouple the drywall from your existing ceiling joists. If you have the room to lose some ceiling height you could frame a new ceiling off your inside wall of the double wall system, but this is usually not the case in most homes where ceiling height is limited. For this reason, I recommend using acoustic clips like the I-B1 Clips, Whisper Clips, or Hush Frame Rafts attached to the ceiling joists and then attaching furring channel to those clips. You then will hang 2-4 layers of 5/8" drywall from those clips. 

***NOTE*** How much drywall should you use? For a home theater I would recommend 3-4 layers of drywall because of the low sub woofer bass. Low frequencies require more mass so use as much drywall as you can afford. 

Ideally, your home theater would have only one door since soundproof doors are expensive. I recommend using a communicating door system where you have one door on each side of your double wall system. The key with your doors is that they are heavy and air tight. I have a great video that goes in depth into my soundproof door design here: https://youtu.be/2Rm1DC5HTfg

I recommend using solid core doors and then adding mass to them using 3/4" plywood. Then I recommend buying acoustic seals that will surround all four sides of each of your soundproof doors. This way your doors will be as soundproof as your walls and you will not have a weak point in your home theater where sound can come in or out. 

I hope this article gave you a starting point from which to dive deeper into what it takes to properly soundproof a home theater. If you are serious about designing your theater right the first time than sign up for my soundproofing workshop below or jump on a soundproof clarity call with me on my home page. 

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

I get asked this question a lot: where should I put my vapor barrier in my soundproof wall? In this article I will teach you some best practices for installing vapor barriers and how they relate to your soundproof system. 

Vapor barriers are a common aspect of normal construction and are still needed in soundproof buildings with walls and roofs touching the outside environment. You do not need a vapor barrier with interior walls, you only need a vapor barrier around the entire envelope of your structure. 

Let's take my studio for example, I have four walls touching the outside and a roof. My vapor barrier should be a continuous material that covers all the walls and ceiling and ideally never breaks a seal even where the walls and roof rafters meet. 

The vapor barrier is meant to control condensation build up in your walls and roof and floor. It is needed because the build up of warm moisture inside your building in the winter will want to move to the outside cold air and will condensate on the cooler exterior surfaces of your building like the exterior sheathing leading to moisture damage. In reverse, in the summertime, the warm moist air from the outside will want to enter your cool air conditioned building leading to condensation on the outside surfaces and inside surfaces due to tiny air leaks in your building envelope. 

You notice I say the moist air "wants to move." If you remember back to high school physics high energy states like to move to low energy states to create equilibrium. Hot moist air is high energy and cold dry air is low energy. The two will want to reach a state of equilibrium leading to moisture traveling to cooler surfaces and condensating which leads to mold and mildew growth. 

According to Pretty Good House: A Guide to Creating Better Homes, polyethylene or poly, as it is commonly known, is not an ideal vapor barrier in all but the coldest climates. The reason is that the membrane was usually rendered useless after many staples, nail holes and other tears were introduced during installation (Kolbert et al., 117). 

What is the solution then? The answer depends on your type of construction and this is where things get interesting. If you have a double wall construction then the vapor variable membrane is ideal. if you are using single wall construction with acoustic clips and channels then you may want to use a different approach. I will go over all the options in the following section. 

A great solution for your soundproof building is to use vapro variable membranes. "Vapor-variable membranes are designed to resist the passage of water vapor from the interior into wall and roof cavities in winter but allow any accumulated moisture to dry to the interior when the seasons change" (Kolbert et al., 118). You can buy vapor-variable membranes from brands like Pro Clima, CertainTeed, Siga, Delta and Rothoblaas. In climates with both cold and warm seasons the membranes should be installed between the drywall and the studs of the inner wall. 

Compared to poly these membranes are more durable and will not rip or tear as easily. They still need tapes and seals at their seems and should always be installed according to the manufacturer's guidelines. 

Closed cell spray foam can work as a vapor control layer, however only if it is installed correctly. If any gaps or shrinkage occurs in the spray foam then water vapor can still get in and condense inside your walls. Make sure if you use spray foam that you create a continuous layer even over the studs themselves. This could mean increasing the gap in your double wall system because you don't want the spray foam to attach to your inner wall. The closed cell spray foam can couple the two walls leading to a failure in your isolation. 

Also, spray foam does not help with acoustics. In fact, closed cell spray foam will hurt isolation because it is effectively shrinking the air space in your double wall system. Remember, spray foam does not replace fiberglass or mineral wool insulation. You still need an open insulation for sound control in your wall system. Second, spray foam has toxic off gassing and many brands increase global warming. For all of these reasons I don't recommend using spray foam unless if is used as a vapor barrier in a cathedral ceiling, but even then there are better methods, such as adding insulation outside the roof sheathing.  

Another option if you are building your soundproof room from scratch is to use a vapor open assembly. The idea with this system is that the sheathing acts as the primary vapor and air barrier and the insulation is place on the outside of the wall not the inside. This method keeps the wood sheathing warm in the winter and allows the open insulation like cellulose to vent vapor to the outside. You can see in the diagram below an example vapor open wall assembly. 

The real downside to this system is the added material and build costs. In soundproofing you would still need to insulate your interior walls anyways for sound, so you are essentially adding more cost without to much benefit, but this is an option and maybe one benefiting a clip channel design over a double wall assembly. 

Lastly, there is the outsulation wall assembly. This is similar to the vapor open assembly accept that it uses a vapor closed insulation layer rather than a vapor open layer. In this design the sheathing is still your primary air and vapor barrier with rigid polystyrene or polyiso insulation board layered over the outside of the sheathing. The insulation board becomes the primary thermal control layer and keeps the sheathing warm in the winter preventing moisture condensation. 

Vapor control is an important aspect of any design and build. It enters the realm of green building design and building science. As you can see there is some overlap in green building design and soundproof building design. Air tight structures and double wall assemblies are both preferred. The main take away for use soundproofing designers is to look at our options and choose the best one for each specific job. If you are using a double wall assembly I would use the vapor-variable membrane method. If you are using acoustic clips and hat channels you may opt for a vapor open or outsulation wall assembly because the clips would penetrate your vapor variable membrane. 

I would stay away from spray foam unless you feel it is your absolute only option. Remember, spray foam is hazardous to health, bad for the environment and is expensive. I hope this article has taught you more than you could have ever imagined about moisture control. As you are planning and designing your home studio talk with your builder about these methods and buy the book I referenced. It is a great resource for any building, but especially us home studio designers. 

Works Cited:

Kolbert, Dan, et al. Pretty Good House : A Guide to Creating Better Homes. Newtown, CT, The Taunton Press, 2022.

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

Do you need to float your soundproof walls or can they sit on the existing floor? In this article we will go over when you need to float your walls and when you don't. I will also cover some basic techniques on how to float a wall. 

Most of the time I try not to float walls in my designs. The reason is that it adds more cost and time to the build. However, there are times when you should float your walls. When you build on any floor that is not heavy concrete you must float the floor and probably should float your walls as well. This is especially true if you are building on the second story of a house and your walls would be connected directly to the rest of the home if you did not float them. 

One of the major aspects of sound isolation is reducing or eliminating flanking paths. This is where sound travels from one material to another and eventually into your room When wood walls touch a wood floor the sound easily travels from the floor to the wall and into your studio. 

So how do you fix this problem? 

There are two main options when floating walls. One is to use special acoustic isolators under the wall that decouple the wall from the floor and the other is to use common materials like neoprene rubber, or mineral wool to float the wall. 

Rod Gervais, in his book "Home Recording Studio, Build it like the Pros recommends using ND Isolators from Mason Industries. (Gervais, 276)

example of Mason Industries ND Isolator

To buy the correct isolator you need to know the load of your floating wall. First, you need to calculate the weight of all the lumber, drywall, doors and windows in your wall and then you can purchase the correct isolator for the wall. This is not a fun task, but can be done by diagraming out your wall design on paper or in a CAD program and adding up the weight of each material. 

If you are using mineral wool, rubber or an isolation pad you still need to know the how much weight the spring can handle. If the mineral wool for example is not dense enough then the wall may compress the mineral wool too much leading to less isolation. If the mineral wool is too dense the wall may not compress the wool enough leading to more sound transfer. Ideally, the mineral wool would compress about 50% creating an equilibrium where the force exerted down is equal to the elastic force of the wool leading to the best isolation possible. 

You might be wondering, how do I figure all this out. The answer is either through the manufacturer's manual, such is the case with the ND Isolators or by using techniques that have proven functional. In the second case you would have to find charts showing the percent compression of the product with different weights added on top of it. As you can see all of this is fairly complicated, but it is an option. My point here is to not teach how to float a wall in depth, but more so, show you what is technically possible. 

When you are building on a concrete slab in a garage, basement or new building you do not need to float your walls or your floor. Concrete on earth is a great isolator and for most home studios, home theaters or offices will work perfectly as your isolation system for the floor. The only reason you may still want to float a wall on concrete is if lots of sound is traveling through the concrete floor. 

Say for example, your studio is built on a concrete slab shared with a car mechanic shop. The shop would be driving cars on the slab, dropping tools, running heavy machinery on the slab and all those vibrations could travel through the slab into your studio. In this case, I would say don't build a studio there, but if you had to you would want to float your walls and floor off the slab. 

Now you know when you should and should not float a wall in your soundproof room. Remember, that you need to float walls if you are building on top of a wood deck in your home. Second, to float walls you can use isolators like the ND Isolators from Mason Industries or rubber, or mineral wool pads. Whatever you use to float your wall you want to make sure the isolator material can handle the weight of the wall. 

Lastly, you do not need to float a wall if you are building on a concrete slab over earth. You can simply build your walls on the concrete and add a sill gasket for moisture, but you do not need to float the walls.  

Works Cited

Gervais, Rod. Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros. 2nd Edition, Course Technology Cengage Learning, 2011. 

Mason-Ind.com, 2024, mason-ind.com/nd/. Accessed 9 May 2024.

Philip Richard Newell. Recording Studio Design. New York ; London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

Books I Recommend - (Affiliate Links)

Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros by Rod Gervais: https://amzn.to/48ONVF6

Home Recording Studio Design by Philip Newell - https://amzn.to/4b7zyxd

Master Handbook Of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest and Ken Pohlmann: https://amzn.to/3Olwio7

If you are fortunate enough to buy a home with the intent of building a home recording studio then you should look for specific characteristics in the home. This article goes over what to look for when you plan to a build a recording studio in your new house. 

The first question you need to decide is if you want to build in the existing house or barn or shed or from the ground up in the back yard. Both have pros and cons. Let's take a look at what to consider here: 

Pros:

Cons: 

Pros: 

Cons:

Hopefully this list gets you thinking of potential benefits and obstacles of each location. It might be wise to try writing down your own pros and cons list as a mental excercise in potential issues you could face down the road. 

If you decide to build from scratch there are few things I would look for before purchasing a property. 

These are some things I ran up against when I built my studio. In some cases it might be better to add your studio on as an addition rather than detached dwelling unit or DADU for short. I would work with a realtor and contact your local codes department during the housing search to get a good feel for what is possible with detached units. 

***As a side note: I am note a fan of pre-fab sheds. They are cheaply made and tend to lead to more problems than solutions with studios. Stay away from any pre-fab buildings if you intend to soundproof it.***

The more common option for most people is to build a home recording studio in an existing space in their house or in a barn or shed in the backyard. This is a great option, but there are some serious pitfalls you want to avoid. First, I highly recommend only building a soundproof studio on a concrete slab. The reason is that if you don't you will have to float the floor, which will cost $2,000-$4,000 for a single room and will add tremendous weight to your existing floor. This means you need to hire a structural engineer to look at your existing floor before floating the floor (again $1-2K) and they might say you need added support, which could cost even more money and that is before even building your studio. 

All of this is to say, that second story rooms are not ideal for isolation. It can be done, but it is costly and time consuming. Instead, build your studio in a basement with a concrete slab or a garage and you will be way better off. So, when you are house searching look for basements and garages.

Pros:

Cons

Pros: 

Cons: 

There is a lot to consider when you buy a new home with the intent of building a recording studio on the property. Remember, the first decision is wether to build new or in an existing area. Next you must decide if you will build in a garage, basement or a concrete slab shed or barn. Finally, you alway need to look for the ease of the build. Is the space unfishined, how high are the ceilings, and what potential roadblocks will you face with existing structures? All of this is important to consider when choosing the ideal house for your new home recording studio. 

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

Many people have asked me how do you finish the gap between two doors or two windows in a double wall system without connecting the two walls. In this article I will explain how I finish the gap so to speak without physically connecting the two walls. 

Many of you may be familiar with the hallmark soundproof wall system: two stud walls with a 1" air gap (30mm) with insulation in each wall and two layers of 5/8" drywall on the outside of each wall. This is the best wall system you can achieve short of two masonry walls with an 8" air gap between them. 

With two soundproof doors you want each door frame to only connect to one wall. So, in our double wall system we would build one door and door frame for the outside wall and one for the inside wall. This leaves a gap between the two walls. So there inlies the problem, what do we do with the gap? 

First, before even building the frame I put 1/16" thick layer of rubber from the edge of one stud wall to the edge of the other stud wall. See the diagram below for a visual idea of this. 

You can buy the rubber on amazon or find a local retailer. Rubber is a natural sound barrier and does not conduct vibration easily. It has the added benefit of closing the air gap, which will stop odors that could develop in the wall from entering your studio. 

Once you have the rubber installed you can then build your door frames and hang your two doors with seals. Below is an image of the finished frames with the rubber gap visible. 

So now what do we do with the rubber since it doesn't look nice? Well, the next step is to fill the gap between the frames on all three sides with insulation and acoustic fabric. I recommend a mineral wool with 1.6-3 PCF density. This will function in two ways. First it will fill the gap and make it flush with the frame and the fabric will create a nice clean finished look. Second, it will help with isolation because the insulation will absorb the sound and dampen resonances in the door cavity. This works just like the insulation in our double wall system. 

Below is a diagram of the finished door frame with the insulation and fabric installed. To install the insulation you can simply cut it to size and stick it in the gap. Then use construction staples to attach the fabric to each door frame and cover the staples and fabric with a nice finishing piece of trim. Any way works so get creative with the build, but don't attach your two walls with wood. 

The plan with the windows is the same except instead of door frames and door leafs you are dealing with window frames and glass. 

First, add your rubber all the way around the window rough opening on all four sides. See the diagram below for details. 

Next, once you have the window frames in place you can add the insulation and acoustic fabric to fill the gap between the two window frames. Again, below is a diagram showing this in one of my clients plans. 

So as you can see, it's not really hard to ensure your windows and doors are decoupled, but it does take a precise system to do it. As long as you follow this method you will guarantee your windows and doors maintain their optimum isolation. 

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

In this article I will go over proper ways to wire your home recording studio to avoid ground loops, which can cause noise in your audio signal. I highly recommend you start with another one of my videos before reading this article as they build upon one another: https://youtu.be/itY4bpd_5JQ?si=emj9uZMWqppCN14Q

Grounding is the use of a specific wire that will send excess current directly into the ground of the earth. This is a safety precaution and every electrical system to code should have a grounding system. 

In home recording studios we want each individual ground to connect to the main ground in the building structure without sharing common grounds with each other. What does this mean? 

Imagine you have an outlet where your amp is plugged into and the amp has a three prong plug with a ground. Now imagine in that same room you have a lamp with a three prong plug with a ground as well. Ideally, each of those grounds would not be connected and they would run seperate grounds to the main panel without sharing a common ground wire. Here are two diagrams showing the wrong way and the right way to ground your audio equipment. 

The Wrong Way -

The right way: 

Notice how in the right way diagram all the audio units go directly from the outlet to their dedicated spot on the electrical panel. These means ground are not shared with additional plugs in your electrical system.

Now, is this doable in all home recording studios, maybe not, but it is the best practice. With everything related to electrical I always recommend talking what you learn to your electrician and discussing options with them. The more you know the more you can teach them about how electrical power interacts with audio. 

A ground loop occurs when electricity mixes with the audio signal in a shared ground creating a circuit or loop which leads to hums and noise in the audio chain. Now, everyone has different methods for avoiding ground loops. Philip Newell states you should not have interconnected grounds at all, but the feasibility of this may be difficult in the home studio. Rod Gervais, another studio designer says there are two options. 

1) Remove one of the ground paths which would create a single point ground and close the loop. 

2) Or use an isolation transformer to "break the ground loop." Gervais talks about a unit called Tripp Lite that can be used to eliminate ground loops. (Gervais, 121) 

Gervais also recommends asking your electrician if you can install hospital grade isolated ground receptacles and a star grounding system. (Gervais, 122) The idea behind this wiring technique is to run isolated grounds from each electrical outlet that are then connected to the buildings own earth ground. The point is to know enough to ask your electrician if they are familiar with this system, but not to try and install it yourself. 

Neil A. Muncy coined the term "Zero Loop Area" as a way to stop ground loops from happening. His approach is to wire the studio in such a way that "loop areas" cannot happen. So now how do you do this. 

J.H. Brandt wrote a great paper summarizing Muncy's ideas. The best way to understand the zero loop area is to first understand the loop area. 

Imagine you have a tube mic that is plugged into a wall outlet because it needs power. That tube mic also must have an XLR cable (with a ground) that is connected to your audio interface or console. The electricity from both grounds form a loop from the console ground to the tube mic power supply ground connected by the electrical supply. Here is a diagram that will visually show this in more detail. 

So how do we fix the loop? The best way to prevent ground loops is to have all of your audio gear plugged into dedicated audio outlets behind your desk or if it is a live room at one dedicated location in the room. This way you eliminate the loop that is formed from multiple outlets in the room connected by multiple ground wires. Here is a diagram of the zero loop system in place. 

Notice how all the audio gear is plugged into the 4 gang outlet behind the console/interface. That outlet or outlets is then fed directly to the electrical panel. As a bonus your audio should have it's own dedicated breaker(s) on the electrical panel and should only be on one "leg" of the panel. Again, watch my other video mentioned at the top of this article to understand how electrical panels work. 

The goal in wiring your home recording studio is to have all your audio equipment on isolated ground that go directly to the electrical panel. You do not want to create physical loops where audio equipment is plugged into outlets around the room and then the audio cables are grounded to a different outlet at the front of the room. 

If a ground loop needs to be fixed you can try an isolation transformer. However, when designing your studio it is best to work with your electrician to avoid having ground loops in the first place. Use these tips to ensure your studio has clean audio and clean electrical. 

Works Cited: 

Brandt, John. Grounding, Audio Wiring, and Zero Loop Area Design. https://jhbrandt.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Grounding-Wiring-Zero-Loop-Area.pdf

Gervais, Rod. Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros. 2nd Edition, Course Technology Cengage Learning, 2011. 

Philip Richard Newell. Recording Studio Design. New York ; London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

FREE Acoustic Treatment Guide: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/acoustic

I talk a lot about home recording studios, but what about the acoustics of a home youtube creation studio. In this article I will go over some methods and designs for making your youtube studio sound as good as it looks. 

The biggest single difference you can make in your youtube studio will be adding what are called bass traps in all four of your corners. A bass trap is really just an acoustic panel that straddles the two walls in the corner of your room. 

These acoustic panels help to absorb frequencies lower than panels that simply hang on the wall, hence how they got the name bass trap. 

I would always start with bass traps in your corners because this will make the largest noticeable difference in your room for the money. 

You can build bass traps from scratch by watching this youtube video I made - https://youtu.be/bWqoRYnYlqE

Or if you want to buy something already built I would recommend GIK Acoustics or Music City Acoustics. 

Here are links to GIK Bass Traps - https://www.gikacoustics.com/product-category/bass-traps/

Here is a link to Music City Acoustics - https://www.musiccityacoustics.com/shop/p/bass-trap-acoustic-panels

Now you may not be mixing audio, but most likely you will have a desk and want to hear what your youtube videos sound like. For this reason you still want an accurate picture of what you are hearing out of your speakers. 

First, you need to decide where in your room you will sit when listening back to your speakers. I recommend sitting centered facing the shorter wall of your room. This means the longer walls are on your left and right. 

Once you have established your listening position the next step will be to set up your reflection free zone. Before we jump into that I will say if your room works better with you facing the longer walls then do it. Just try and sit in the middle of that wall if possible. However, with a youtube studio your camera space for shooting is probably more important than your listening back environment, so do what works best for you. I would recommend not putting your speakers in the corners of the room because this will lead to a bass build up in one speaker and not the other. 

The next step to getting great acoustics is to create the reflection free zone. This is the area to the left, right and above your listening position. This diagram below shows the reflection free zone. 

The goal is to hang acoustic panels to the right and left of your listening spot. These can be bass trap panels or if you want to save some money and space you can also use thinner acoustic panels. Again, you can make these panels yourself or buy them at the links below: 

GIK Acoustics - https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-242-acoustic-panel/

Music City Acoustics - https://www.musiccityacoustics.com/shop/p/high-mid-acoustic-panels

The next step is to hang at least two 2x4' panels over top of your listening spot. This will reduce reflections overhead and will give you crystal clear recordings when sitting at your desk and clear playback of your speakers. Both Music City Acoustics and GIK Acoustics offer ways to hang your panels from the ceiling using specialty clips. 

Behind you on the back wall you should hang some acoustic panels to cover reflections from your speakers and to reduce reflections off the back wall while filming your videos. Usually 2-3 2x4' panels is enough and again these can be bass trap panels or thinner panels. In general bass trap panels are better for smaller bedroom sized rooms because they can help control the problem frequencies in smaller rooms. 

Now if your room still has large areas of wall or ceiling that do not have a panel it would be a good idea to add panels as necessary to reduce flutter echo also known as slap back echo. This is the flutter you hear when you clap in a room with bare walls. This echo can muddy recorded sound in a room including your voice. For professional crystal clear vocals and instruments you want to reduce flutter echo as best as you can. 

In smaller rooms diffusion panels are not always a good idea, but they do look cool. Since video is the key part of this room I would recommend having a little fun with adding some panels with cool designs on them that will also help to "brighten" the sound of the room. They can also make the room sound bigger if it is feeling to dead with all the acoustic panels you added. Below are some panels you can check out on GIK acoustics and Music City Acoustics websites'. 

GIK Acoustics: https://www.gikacoustics.com/product-category/alpha-series/

Music City Acoustics: https://www.musiccityacoustics.com/shop/p/scatter-face-diffusers

Acoustically treating your Youtube studio will lead to better sounding and potentially cooler looking videos. If you hear too much of the room in your videos then doing what I teach in this video will lead to cleaner more professional audio. It will also give you pro studio quality monitoring so you know what you are hearing from your speakers is coming from the speakers and not the reflections in the room. 

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

If you have followed me for some time you know I love to say you have to take it to the studs to properly soundproof a room. Now, while I still think this is one of the best ways to soundproof, there is another way that means you don't have to remove any drywall/gyprock/plasterboard. 

This technique is especially helpful for those who want to soundproof apartments, houses and offices against outside noise like those pesky neighbors. 

Okay let's dive into how this works. 

Everything I am about to teach is from Philip Newell. He is a great studio designer and I would highly recommend his book: Recording Studio Design, if you want to dive deep on the subject. 

Ideally your existing wall should have as much mass on it as possible. I like to shoot for 4.4 Lb per Sq/Ft (21.5 Kg/m2). That is the weight of two layers of 5/8" drywall. 

For example if your existing wall is just 1/2" drywall I would add another layer of 5/8" drywall on top to get a bit more mass on the existing wall. 

Next, we create our spring or decoupling system. This is done using 4"  5 Lb/ Ft3 (10cm 80 Kg/m3) of Rebond foam also known as reconstituted open cell polyurethane foam. This will act as the spring in our mass spring mass system. This is also what the air gap is doing in a double wall system. In that case the spring is air not foam. 

To finish off the wall system we need to add two more layers of 5/8" drywall on top of the foam. All of this will be glued together to the existing walls with contact adhesive. 

The ceiling is built the exact same way. You make sure you have enough mass on your existing ceiling and that your ceiling can hold the extra weight and you build your soundproof sandwich. 

In our example above you would add the 5/8" drywall to the exiting 1/2" drywall, then the rebond foam and finish it off with two layers of 5/8" drywall. Again, everything would be held together with contact adhesive. 

You might be wondering about wall penetrations from outlets and lights. You have two options here. First, you can use putty pads on the backs of all the lights, outlets and switches which requires pulling them down adding the putty and reinstalling the boxes in the new ceiling. 

Alternatively, you could run the electrical through the ceiling and flush mount all your electrical inside the room. This is what most pro studios do to increase isolation. 

Now that you have soundproofed right over your walls and ceiling it is time to do the floor. There are many ways to soundproof a floor or float a floor, but this design will work in most homes and apartments provided they can handle the extra load. 

First, put down a layer of 1" 10 Lb/Ft3 of Rebond foam (3cm 160 Kg/M3) over your existing floor. Next, add a 1/2" layer of drywall (13mm). Then add a layer of 1/8" 1/2 Lb Mass Loaded Vinyl (5kg/m3). After that add another 1/2" layer of drywall. Then glue and nail together two layers of 3/4" plywood (19mm) and your final flooring layer on top of that. 

This will give you a very heavy floated floor. You could also pour concrete over the foam or use paving slabs mortared together. 

If you followed this design, Philip Newell says you should expect to get 20dB of isolation at 70Hz and 50dB of Isolation at 2kHz. That is pretty good and will work for voices, TVs, traffic noise and other common noise issues. It will fall short for loud bass from amps, bass drums or sub woofers and it will not be adequate for super loud sounds from rock bands and full drum sets. 

However, for most people this could be an adequate way to soundproof if you really don't want to tear out your current walls. Is this easy and cheap? No, Rebond foam is more expensive than framing a new wall and you will still cover up your existing walls, ceilings and floors. However, this is just another option in the tool box for sound isolation. 

Works Cited:

Philip Richard Newell. Recording Studio Design. New York ; London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

FREE Soundproofing Workshop: https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/workshop

Yup, I said it. I am taking a stance on green glue and I do not use it in any of my studio designs. In this article I will make the argument why not. 

First, Green Glue costs a ton of money and most home studios don't have big budgets. 

A soundproof wall typically uses two layers of 5/8" (16mm) drywall on either side of a double wall system. You can see the diagram below as an example. The cost of 1 layer of drywall is $17.87 here in the United States. That is $0.56 per square foot. 

Now a pail of green glue costs $394.88 at Buildcorp Direct. They say that covers 380 Sq/ft. That means the cost of Green Glue is $1.04 per Sq/ft. At The Soundproofing Company a 5 gallon pail of Green Glue costs $406.69 and covers 365 Sq/ft. That comes out to $1.11 Sq/ft. Also, remember the cost of the speed load gun to apply the green glue is around $65. 

Now lets average those two costs. The average cost for Green Glue is then $1.08/SqFt. Remember, to that for smaller projects where you don't need a pail of Green Glue the cost will be higher. 

Now, Green Glue on average costs $1.08/square foot. That means the cost of adding green glue is almost the same as adding two more layers of drywall to your wall. As I will talk about in the next section adding two layers of drywall will certainly be better than adding Green Glue. 

Now you may say, well I could add Mass Loaded Vinyl instead of drywall or Green Glue. The answer would be that the cost would again be even more for MLV and I would argue not worth the added damping it provides. 

5/8" drywall weights around 2.2 Lb/SqFt. MLV weighs 2 Lb/SqFt. The cost of 2 Lb MLV is $179.95 and covers 50 SqFt. That is $3.60 per square foot. That is six times the cost of drywall and over three times the cost of Green Glue. So when you want to build a studio for $15-20K why would you waste money on Green Glue and MLV when you could add more drywall for less money?

Now you are going to say, Wilson, but I don't have space for more drywall. My answer would be you will lose 5/8" of an inch on each wall. If you want to save that space and spend way more money doing it then go ahead, but it is not a logical conclusion in my opinion. 

In soundproofing we have two systems that help with sound attenuation. The first is mass and the second is damping. Mass is most important because without mass you cannot stop sound, especially low frequencies. You cannot hang RockWool insulation and stop sound, just like you cannot hang MLV and hope to stop sound. Both of those substances, like Green Glue absorb sound through damping, which is the conversion of sound to heat through frictional or restrictive forces. 

Mass on the other hand reflects sound. A solid concrete wall will reflect more sound than a wall with only drywall. Mass also reflects low frequencies better than damping alone. For this reason, it is always better to add mass first and damping second. 

When you are on a budget you should add drywall before buying Green Glue. If you have a budget you should build heavier concrete walls over weaker drywall walls. Either way, you should not use Green Glue because it is an efficient use of your money. 

A big problem in the home recording studio market is that the STC ratings everyone focuses on don't even measure below 125Hz. They were designed to set standards to reduce the transfer of the human voice from room to room for commercial buildings and residential condos. They were not designed for recording studios. 

Therefore, STC ratings are mostly useless when it comes to studio design. Shocking right? So what do you do. You use experience to guide decisions on how much isolation you need and you follow studio designers like myself not the big companies pitching you soundproofing products. 

Philip Newell has a great quote in his book, "Recording Studio Design." He states,

"One would think that from the individual isolation figures of the individual isolation systems we would be able to calculate the total isolation, but there are interactions which make calculations difficult unless many other factors are known. " (Philip Richard Newell, 56)

Basically, to paraphrase, Newell is saying experience is key. STC ratings, forums, books and any other advice is only that and at the end of the day until you have built a few studios you don't know how things will work together because there are simply too many variables to test, calculate or predict fully. 

Now, back to the STC ratings. If you look at Green Glue's STC ratings they will say that it is superior to two layers of drywall and that is true according to the test data, however, it is not necessarily superior to four layers of drywall because the added mass will help with those frequencies below 125Hz. Again, recording studios require experience and understanding beyond simple lab tests and STC reports. 

I have talked to three different studio designers and soundproofing professionals and none of them uses or recommends using Green Glue. I personally talked to Rod Gervais, the author of Home Recording Studio: Build it like the Pros and he said he no longer recommends Green Glue because Saint Gobain is said to have changed the ingredients since his initial testings. He recommends more layers of drywall or adding MLV if space is tight. 

JH Brand, and I talked over zoom and he said he also does not use Green Glue in his studio designs. Philip Newell, the author of Home Recording Studio Design and one of the original studio designers from the 60's on never once mentions Green Glue in his over 700 page book on studio design. 

Finally, I am working with a Soundproofing contractor with over 10 years of experience building soundproof rooms and he also said he doesn't use Green Glue and prefers other methods that are cheaper and better for sound isolation. 

The fact that professionals in the field do not use Green Glue is further proof that this product is too expensive and possibly not even that useful for sound isolation. 

It is not easy to find reliable test data on Green Glue, in fact Green Glue has removed all test data from their website in recent years. The last reliable test data done by the Green Glue company was done in 2011 as can be seen below from SoundMan2020's blog where he posted several lab results. (“Green Glue Test Results - Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum”)

Notice this lab report was done by Saint Gobain. Saint Gobain acquired Green Glue from its owner, Brian Ravnaas back around 2010. Now, this is getting into some conspiracy theory territory, but I think it is worth mentioning in this argument. I had made a video touting that Green Glue is equivalent to four layers of drywall as is stated in Rod Gervais's book: Home Recording Studio: Build It Like the Pros. However, Rod emailed me after posting the video and said he no longer recommends using Green Glue. He said the reason was that when Ravnaas sold the company, Saint Gobain then changed the ingredients. Gervais made it clear that his testing done with Ravnaas was now in question and could not be trusted anymore. 

I have reached out to Ravnaas many times to confirm this accusation, but have not gotten a response. It does make me question Green Glue's validity, especially in the hands of a mega corporation like Saint Gobain. 

Second, Gervais and Ravnaas are not alone in accusing Green Glue and Saint Gobain of posting unfair or false test results. Serious Materials, the maker of Quietglue Pro, a direct competitor to Green Glue states that: 

"Green Glue states that they had an STC 55 in 2005 and we should just take that and move on. To state this clearly: We have not been able to reproduce their results after spending considerable financial and people resources on testing in multiple independent labs with varying dry times out to 35 days." (“Green Glue Test Results - Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum”)

My point here is to say that Saint Gobain needs to re-test Green Glue in a verified lab and show that it still lives up to its standards. I would also love to see a comparison of Green Glue in a double wall system, since most STC lab reports only show a single wall assembly. Again, Green Glue makes way more money off commercial building applications where the human voice is the main concern. 

If you search on Youtube about soundproofing and Green Glue you are bound to come across people saying carpet glue is the same consistency as Green Glue, but cheaper. I do not recommend using carpet glue, but if you want to experiment then carpet glue could be an option since it is far cheaper than Green Glue. However, based on my arguments above your best option is to add more mass to your wall before wasting time working with sticky carpet glue. 

In conclusion Green Glue costs twice as much as adding one more layer of 5/8" drywall. Adding more mass to a wall will help you attenuate against low frequencies. While damping with Green Glue, MLV, Insulation, Carpet Glue or any other damping material will help, it still remains an expensive option when compared to simply adding more drywall. If you require high isolation and have the budget and space than I would always recommend two masonry walls with as big an air gap as possible. 

Green Glue shows higher STC ratings, but remember STC ratings do not officially test below 125Hz. This makes this data largely irrelevant for home studio construction. Heavier walls will always lead to better attenuation at lower frequencies. 

Then remember the professionals in the industry do not use Green Glue so why should you? Green Glue is a money maker for soundproofing stores and Saint Gobain, it is not the end all be all way to achieve great sound isolation. 

Saint Gobain should re-test Green Glue and show that it still stands up to its competitors and other forms of sound isolation. I would be curious to see how a double wall wil three and four layers of 5/8" drywall compares to a double wall with two layers of drywall and Green Glue. 

Green Glue competitors and options like carpet glue may be cheaper, but they still don't have the same benefits of adding more mass to the wall for less money. You can try carpet glue if you want to experiment, but there is not any reliable test data on its use. 

For all of these reasons I do not think you need to use Green Glue to soundproof your room. If you want more isolation than two layers of 5/8" drywall then add another layer or two of drywall. If you don't want drywall or if you are worried about the coincidence effect then you could use plywood or OSB with a similar mass to 5/8" drywall. Either way you will save money and achieve better isolation by simply using basic construction materials like drywall and plywood. 

Works Cited: 

Gervais, Rod. Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros. 2nd Edition, Course Technology Cengage Learning, 2011. 

“Green Glue Test Results - Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum.” Forum.digistar.cl, forum.digistar.cl/viewtopic.php?t=773. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Philip Richard Newell. Recording Studio Design. New York ; London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.